Jan Simpson is in her Ottawa office, a few blocks away from Parliament Hill when the phone rings. The national postal workers union president doesn’t recognize the number but she answers it anyway.
A woman named Angie is on the other line. She’s upset. She’s yelling. She needs to get cards and gifts to her grandkids.
“She said I ruined her Christmas,” recalls Simpson, who is leading one of the most dramatic labour strikes this country has seen in recent history, with more than 55,000 postal service workers on strike for the past 25 days and counting.
“I said, ‘If you just take a deep breath we can have a little conversation. By the end of the call she was like, ‘OK, so what can I do to help?’”
Angie’s call came a few weeks ago. Today, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Canada Post appear no closer to a deal than they were on Nov. 15, when tens of thousands of workers walked off the job to protest wage inequity, an increasing reliance on part-time workers, shrinking health benefits and pension concerns. Each side has accused the other of taking major steps backwards.
The week after Black Friday is traditionally the busiest time of year for Canada Post, with the service delivering roughly two million packages daily. Amid the strike, however, the only mail that has continued circulating is social services cheques. A recent Angus Reid poll found seven in 10 Canadians have been affected by delays in either sending or receiving packages.
Simpson, the first Black woman to lead a union organization in Canada, spoke with the Star about the challenges of negotiating while fielding escalating racist threats, why a 24 per cent pay raise for workers is not the craziest ask ever, and what’s on the line for all Canadians if Canada Post “gig-ifies” a Crown corporation.
“I’ve seen many a strike, been on many a picket line,” said Simpson, who’s based in Ottawa because of her work, but calls Scarborough home. “Labour across this country and around the world has been on strike so much this past year because so many workers have fallen behind. Employers are sitting back waiting for binding arbitration to order people back to work.”
Simpson, whose family moved to Toronto from Barbados when she was just a toddler, started working at Canada Post in high school, as a Christmas helper sorting mail on a conveyor belt by postal code. The opportunity eventually turned into part-time work and then a full-time career that helped her raise a family of her own.
“I don’t take this fight lightly. We have a real responsibility to ensure that good jobs remain within the community. For me, it’s really, really important that we have an equitable society where people don’t fall behind.”
Over the weekend, Simpson shovelled her way out of her driveway to split her days between a picket line and a board office, trying to make headway on Canada Post’s latest response to the union’s position.
“In this round of bargaining with Canada Post — you see them coming after every generation of postal workers,” she said. “They’re coming after the retirees, the current members, the future members and they’re trying to gut our entire collective agreement.”
Canada Post, for its part, has said its proposals “include significant moves to close the gap on key issues like weekend delivery, pensions and wages to reach new agreements.” On Monday, the federal service called the union’s latest offer a “major step backwards,” saying its demands “reinforce the status quo and add significant and unsustainable long-term fixed costs.”
A series of unofficial “exchanges” began over Zoom about a week ago, after federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon delivered a closed-door ultimatum to the union and Canada Post to work things out. No formal bargaining, however, has occurred since Nov. 28, when the mediator called off talks, saying the two sides were too far apart to reach a deal.
Simpson said she understands public support for the union may be evaporating.
“What the public needs to know,” she said, “is that we began bargaining with Canada Post over a year ago. A year. And then in August, we said, ‘Hey, it’s going too slow. Let’s call for the mediators.’ And we did that. After that, the mediators became conciliators. We tried our best to get this done before this time of year. We didn’t think it would ever last this long.”
In the past week, she’s received an increasing number of racially charged threats. She has a hard time talking about it. She expected hate mail, but the messages have taken on a darker tone.
When asked to elaborate, she takes long pause before speaking.
“They’re not nice,” she explains. “You Black so and so … They call me different names. Wishing cancer upon your family. Things like that. Of course, they’re upset that the mail stopped moving.”
This is Simpson’s second time as union president at the bargaining table with Canada Post.
During the pandemic, the union didn’t engage in traditional bargaining as the contract had expired. They extended their collective agreement. Everybody just wanted to make sure that the mail got out.
Marie Clarke Walker was secretary treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress at the time.
“Canada Post wanted to make sure that things kept going, particularly because postal workers were a lot of people’s only connection to the outside world while we were in lockdown,” Clarke Walker said. “Simpson ensured that would continue. And that was supposed to continue with the understanding that once they got into the next round of bargaining, which is this one, that losses would be made up (by Canada Post). There were no increases, no nothing.”
The union initially called for a cumulative wage hike of 24 per cent over four years. As of late Monday, it was asking for a total of 19 per cent in wage hikes over four years and a guaranteed minimum 20 hours per week of work for part-time employees.
“We have members who are going to the food bank, some are living in their cars,” Simpson said. “A lot of people are picking between do I pay my rent or do I buy my groceries? Postal workers aren’t making these exorbitant fees that people think we’re making.”
In 2011, the federal government under then-prime minister Stephen Harper imposed a wage grid that effectively froze starting salaries.
Letter carriers and clerks hired on or after Feb. 1, 2013, make an average starting wage of roughly $22 an hour, which maxes out at $31. It takes about seven years to get to the highest end of the wage grid.
“Rural and suburban mail carriers are still providing their own vehicles even though they are employees of Canada Post,” Simpson said. “When we saw inflation go through the roof and they charged the public more money for gas and those other things, the rural and suburban mail carriers did not see any increase in their gas allowance.”
A “cost of living allowance” outlined in the workers’ collective agreement has not been triggered since the late 1980s, despite rising inflation, Simpson said.
On Tuesday, Canada Post reached out to the Star by email to say Simpson’s comment is “false.”
There have been eight cost-of-living allowance payouts between 2022 and 2024 alone, totalling almost $95 million paid out to CUPW-urban and rural and suburban mail carriers, said Jon Hamilton, vice-president of strategic communications.
Canada Post has reported losing close to half a billion dollars in the first half of 2024 and more than $3 billion since 2018.
Over the weekend, the two sides exchanged barbs through the media, with Canada Post blaming CUPW for dragging out the strike. Simpson attributed the delay to a disagreement over the postal service’s insistence on using part-time workers for weekend deliveries.
“We have the ability to do work on the weekend with full-time staff at the same regular pay that they receive now. So for us, that’s the big sticking point,” said Simpson. “They want to basically gig-ify a Crown corporation.”
Clarke Walker said she doesn’t think Simpson should be cast as the woman who stole Christmas from Canada.
“It takes a lot of guts, a lot of strength, a lot of perseverance to go up against a corporation like Canada Post, which has the backing of government,” said Clarke Walker.
“When (workers) get their benefits, when they get a raise, that money goes into the economy in every community. If they have nothing to put into the economy, the economy will suffer and die. And so that’s how I think people have to look at it. The more money we make, the more money put into the economy, the better Canada as a country, as a whole, is.”
